Alice Moreno
This June will be dedicated to the arts and culture surrounding Queens. That is all thanks to the efforts behind Queens Rising.
According to its website, Queens Rising is known as a “multidisciplinary arts and culture celebration designed to highlight the borough’s creative diversity. ” It launched its summer initiative on April 21 at the Queens Museum, celebrating its fourth anniversary. Throughout June, Queens Rising will host a plethora of creativity-driven events meant to lift up the voices of those who live in Queens.
“What we’re really excited about is it’s a borough-wide celebration of the artists and arts organizations,” said Jeff Rosenstock, director of Queens Rising and Assistant Vice President, External & Governmental Relations at Queens College. “We try to promote to the Queens community and the greater metro area, and really the rich cultural legacy of Queens, and that reflects who our borough is and the work that they do.”
Queens Rising began pre-COVID, when a group of twelve people who run various arts organizations came together to amplify the arts community in Queens. They met every week, deciding on how and when to launch their initiative. At first, Queens Rising’s focus was on the art institutions around Queens. Now, they want to focus on the artists, calling it “Queens Scenes.” It features open calls for artists to display their work in a variety of neighborhoods surrounding Queens, such as Flushing Town Hall, Queens Botanical Garden, Culture Lab LIC, and Resorts World.
“One of our primary goals is we wanted to create a sense of shared community and allow artists, arts administrators, curators, [and] directors to get to know each other better, discuss potential collaborative efforts, help each other, and be there for each other,” said Rosenstock.
Queens Rising is sponsored by Northwell Health, Kupferberg Center of the Arts, the Howard Gillman Foundation, and Resorts World NYC, who, according to Rosenstock, are the borough’s strongest advocates.
During the reception, various city officials and leaders came together to discuss the art community in the borough. Borough President Donovan Richards, Jr. gave a speech, jokingly remarking not to pay the congestion pricing fee to get to Manhattan, but to explore Queens instead, taking in all that the borough has to offer.
“I think that’s a lot of what came out of COVID. People want to be out there, belonging to something, going outside and being part of something,” said Richards. “Queens Rising provides that for this community.”
Katha Cato, the founding executive director of the Queens World Film Festival, also spoke to the audience. The film festival, which has showcased over 1,979 films since its inception, featured 274 Queens-based films, with some of them being from public school students. The students were also in attendance, as their films played on a monitor. Cato spoke on the importance of hearing the voices of young people, who also deserve a spot in the borough’s art community.
“It literally makes me weep to see young people understanding that their voice is necessary, and to have the agency to do it,” said Cato, before introducing some of the student filmmakers.
The reception concluded with a seven-minute performance, titled “Echoes of Arrival,” given by Tommy Ong and Shan Y. Chuang. From Malaysia and Taiwan, respectively, Ong used the Cello while Chuang used spoken word to describe what it is like to be an immigrant living in Queens. They used their voices to describe what it was like first touching down in New York City at JFK, reality settling in as they are far away from not only their culture and country, but their comfort zones.
Queens Rising’s main goal is to showcase the world of talent Queens has to offer. They hope to use their platform and connections to connect the art community, offering to display their work in a variety of settings.
“Hopefully it will spark other people to […] identify their own stories, [and] to find importance within themselves,” said Ong. “Like, ‘oh, I am a person, and I’m living this life here. I’m not just a robot trying to survive capitalism.’”
To view the events held in June, visit https://queensrising.nyc/.
